Boss tackles complex end game

Popular Ambrosie could move chains on safety and more

Randy Ambrosie was standing on the edge. It was a two-tiered stage and the chair he declined to use was close enough that during the entirety of his first address as commissioner on the state of the Canadian Football League, Ambrosie had to be mindful of where he stood.

Which is about right. Ambrosie was only hired in July, and already everybody loves him, or near enough. He has intellect and good instincts, and is smart enough to appear more unvarnished than he actually is. He was a CFL offensive lineman, he has a strong financial and executive background, and he’s from Winnipeg, rather than snooty ol’ Toronto. If the CFL wanted an ideal commissioner and Randy Ambrosie didn’t exist, it would have to invent him.

Which only means he faces stakes that are higher than those of his disappointing predecessor, Jeffrey Orridge. Even before his hour-long session with reporters, it was clear the 54-year-old Ambrosie wants to be a consequential commissioner. He said he wanted to make this league’s audience “two, three times bigger.” As chairman of the board Jim Lawson puts it, “He wants to make a difference.”

And maybe he can. Ambrosie was prepared and spoke without notes; he gave long answers that veered into filibusters, but unlike Orridge he didn’t come across as the least knowledgeable person in the room. This being Ottawa, he took a selfie in front of the audience, “while we still like each other.”

But the job comes with minefields you can’t just joke away, and Ambrosie knows that. He has inherited a league with more stability than ever. New or refurbished stadiums in Regina, Ottawa, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Toronto and even Vancouver; the actual possibility of a 10th team in Halifax, which with a credible ownership group and vaguely encouraging government only requires a business plan and the money for a football stadium. This isn’t 1996, where reporters sat in Hamilton hotel bars talking about how the league was probably going to fold when the game ended, at the end of the week.

This is still football, though, and Ambrosie is still a football commissioner. And while his instincts have been good and his decisions popular — chasing away Art Briles, though 24 hours too late; tweaking replay and eliminating padded practice during the season — that means facing concussions, and player safety.

“I’m not standing in front of you blind to one side of the argument versus the other.” RANDY AMBROSIE ON PLAYER SAFETY

So far, he has dodged. On concussions and a link to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, Ambrosie said, “Cause and effect is unclear. It just simply is.” He talked about data, about studying and searching, about taking player safety seriously, about pledging to do the work. He had a defence: he pulled out the report from the fifth International Consensus Conference on Concussions in Sport, held in Berlin in 2016, which concluded the science has not established an unimpeachable and conclusive link between head trauma and CTE. The league sent its vice-president of football operations and player safety, Kevin McDonald, to the conference. The league has tried to establish a good-faith effort on concussions; this isn’t the NFL. But it’s football.

“There are football players who have had CTE,” said Ambrosie. “That’s a fact . . . I’m not standing in front of you blind to one side of the argument versus the other. I didn’t promise to only study the issue for the things I wanted to read and ignoring everything else.”

OK, but let’s be honest: we’re all just trying to establish the number. Nobody thinks 100 per cent of football players will develop early-onset neurological disease. But nobody thinks it’s zero, either, or comparable to the examples Ambrosie offered: diving, hockey, gymnastics. The NFL estimated 30 per cent in its class-action settlement with players. The CFL can’t afford much of a settlement.

So Ambrosie has to soft-shoe, and hope the league has done enough to establish it’s not a tobacco company. Ambrosie said more of the same, as Orridge had. Nobody should be surprised.

But nobody believed Orridge could solve the problems. It’s not what Ambrosie said. It’s: What will he do? Over and over Friday, Ambrosie leaned hard on his own personal credibility. And that’s fair. He was a player, which should give him a chance to build bridges with the union, which was not enamoured of the previous administration. He has political capital with the owners, and David Braley and Robert Wetenhall — whose franchises in Vancouver and Montreal are, along with Toronto, primary weaknesses — aren’t the power brokers they once were.

Ambrosie has instincts and charisma and intelligence and ambition. People seem so relieved he is in charge. He has a chance to move the league.

So where will he move it? Ambrosie can talk about changing the schedule, improving relations between football operations men and fans and media, a new stadium in Calgary. Revenue-sharing may yet be on the table to help the league’s three big small markets.

“There are football players who have had CTE. That’s a fact.”

COMMISSIONER RANDY AMBROSIE ON BRAIN INJURIES IN FOOTBALL

Convincing CFL owners to work collectively has always been a bucket of worms.

But the big stuff, the vision stuff: that’s where Ambrosie, and his CFL, will be defined. Walk around any Grey Cup and you see a lot of grey hair and familiar faces. He has to bring new Canadians to the game, and bring young people to the game. For a league that trades on its past, the entire future of the CFL is still to be written. You can’t get two to three times bigger without replacing your own fan base first.

Beyond that, Ambrosie wants to create a stronger football culture. He wants more fans, and more kids playing the game. That has to come with a real vision for safety, and for care. Ambrosie will always be charming and smart, but one day, if and when science cements a bridge between football and neurological damage, this league will have to show its work.

So where will he leverage his capital, his advantages, his gifts? That’s the precipice. Time and science march onwards, and Randy Ambrosie wants to be a great and consequential football commissioner. And he will have to decide what that means.